Answer to Question #236367 in Sociology for zoba

Question

Social imagination, The promise

Answer 1

The promise of the sociological imagination is to allow individuals to understand their place in the broader social and historical context. Wright Mills argues that social imagination is when people are affected by the history of society and how people affect history itself. It also allowed people to understand history and it's meaning in life. In “The Promise,” Mills talks about how men feel like they are in a series of traps. It helps people connect their own problems with public problems and their history. In order for an individual to figure out the causes of their problems, they first have to be able to understand the causes of the problems in the society in which they are living in. To use the sociological imagination is to shift your perspective away from yourself and look at things more broadly, bringing in context to individual actions. Social imagination has three elements which includes;

(1) tracing the interconnection between individual's behavioral patterns and the larger social forces,

(2) learning to identify the system generated behavior of human beings, and

(3) identifying the social forces which are shaping the individual's behavior.